Stabler Lives: Chris Meloni Will Revive His SVU Character on a New Show

Nearly a decade after abruptly departing Law & Order: SVU, Christopher Meloni will return to the franchise. He’s set to play Detective Elliot Stabler on a new Dick Wolf series, Deadline reported on Tuesday. The show, which remains untitled and will air on NBC, is expected to see Stabler leading the New York Police Department's organized crime unit.

For fans of Law & Order: SVU, the news was met with near-unanimous and unbridled enthusiasm. (As one Hollywood trade reporter wrote on Twitter: “Oh hell yes.”) Stabler is a beloved character, and his relationship with Olivia Benson (played on the long-running procedural by Mariska Hargitay) remains one of the franchise's most indelible hallmarks, even though Meloni left the show nearly 10 years ago, as contract negotiations broke down. As a result, Stabler was abruptly written off: after he killed a violent criminal in the Season 12 finale, he was put on leave off-screen and later retired.

“The audience deserved an arc out for Stabler. That should have been understood by everyone involved. Instead I kind of walked in and he was just gone,” Warren Leight, who took over showrunner duties on Law & Order: SVU before Season 13 began, told E! in 2016. “A little out of my hands, but there's still continued ill will about it and that's unfortunate.”

Asked by Andy Cohen during an episode of Watch What Happens Live in 2017 if he regretted leaving the show, Meloni said, “Not for a day.” He later joked that he knew it was time to leave when contract negotiations hit a standstill.

But despite that acrimonious conclusion to his SVU run, Meloni and Hargitay remained friendly off-screen. They've reunited a number of times (Hargitay posted a selfie on Instagram of the pair having dinner in 2019) and, earlier this year, participated in an anniversary panel before the show's 21st season debuted.

“It was really hard,” Hargitay said earlier this year of Meloni's exit. She is now the only original Law & Order: SVU cast member still on the show. “It's been really difficult over the years to see people leave, and painful, and scary. I didn't want them to go.”

Whether Stabler and Benson will reunite once the new spin-off debuts remains to be seen—but with both series set to film in New York and set within the same universe, that seems entirely likely. As Leight told E! before this latest news was announced, “I don't know how, I don't know when, but ... I think the fans and Benson and Stabler are owed that.”